Posted on 04/15/2014 4:18:24 PM PDT by KosmicKitty
After listening to one of my favorite podcaster, Dan Carlin & his Hardcore History, about the beginning of World War I, I would love to find out more about this time in history.
I know that Freepers are a well read bunch and I am asking for any recommendations you may care to make in a good book covering this time in history.
Will have to try to get there net time we visit Mr Kitty’s family. Thank you
Thank you for such a comprehensive list!!
Keegan, who died recently, was a leading military historian, and his book is a superb survey of the war as military history. In contrast, Ferguson, by training an academic economist, devotes his book to an analysis of the economic and strategic factors that drove the war.
Notably, both books offered some revisionist conclusions. Keegan mostly rehabilitated General Douglas Haig's extraordinarily costly attacks on the Somme, while Ferguson treats British involvement in the war as a grave mistake that directly led to the long stalemate, massive loss of life, and political disruptions that the war set in motion.
Not at all :-) I should have known better. Lots of history buffs here on FR!
Barbara Tuchman, “The Guns of August” and “The Zimmerman Telegraph”.
Joseph E. Persico’s Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour: Armistice Day, 1918 World War I and Its Violent Climax
Looks good. I’ve heard the author’s name before but can’t place it.
Thanks for the recommendations. Will be happy to add those to my list.
I cried at the end too. It’s actually my favorite thing he wrote.
I remember reading poetry from a British soldier named Wildred Edward Salter Owen who died in 1918 which was quiet good and another soldier named Rupert Brook.
I have the Penguin anthology of WW1 poetry from an old Lit class, I’m sure you can find it at a library or bookstore.
Churchill’s The World Crisis is a great multi-volume treatment.
Isn’t Carlin great? His “Common Sense” podcast is also good.
As for books, “The Price of Glory” by Alistair Horne about Verdun is amazing. Read about the fighting in the tunnels under Fort Vaux and you’ll never trash talk French fighting spirit again. Also “In Flanders Field: The 1917 Offensive” by Leon Wolff, about the sheer idiocy of the high command, sending hundreds of thousands of men to death and mutilation for a few thousand yards gain. Truly horrifying.
My favorite Hemingway too!. I’ll look for the poetry book. I like to take a holistic look at history :-)
I imagine anything by Churchill will be good!! Thanks
BBC made a huge documentary of WW1.
Over 20 episodes....very good.
https://www.youtube.com/user/Documentaryprogramme/videos
We haven’t tried his Common Sense podcasts yet but if they’re anything like Hardcore History, I know we’ll be in for a treat.
Spent our road trips last summer listening to the fall of the Roman republic. That was so interesting.
Will look up the gooks you recommend. Thank you
What amazed me was something I never learned about in HS history. The Spanish flu of 1918, and how many people it wiped out.
I read a book on that about a year or so ago that was so good I read it in a weekend. Couldn’t put it down
As far as a particular battle “The Price of Glory,” by Alistair Horne, St. Martin’s Press 1963. I have been to Verdun, the subject of the book, the earth is still filled with holes upon holes from the battle. It is hard to believe.
My father, who was 9 in 1919 remembered his entire family - parents and 8 kids - all getting the flu but they all survived. He said it was nasty.
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